Easy Homemade Gifts to Make for Christmas

We certainly love to receive gifts but there is more joy from giving gifts. This, unfortunately, can turn into an expensive venture as our list of recipients continues to grow and the prices continue to creep higher. A fantastic way to give Christmas gifts is to make them yourself. This is not only a great cost-saving way to give, it also adds a personal touch to your gifts and is a terrific bonding activity for the whole family. Get your creative juices flowing with these great homemade Christmas gift ideas:

Box of Homemade Christmas Ornaments

This is a great gift idea for anyone as it can be personalized to suit ages and personal interests. You will need a box of plain round Christmas ball ornaments. For a sports fan family, you can paint the ornament to look like a soccer ball, a basketball, a baseball, and so on. You can also paint on personalized season greetings or names. Another idea is to put colorful beads, metallic shreds/tinsel, a feather (to represent an angel), paint (then swirl ornament around to get good coverage), or small toys inside. More ideas include placing a small photo or flower insides.

Box of International Teas (or Coffee)

This is a great way for your family and friends to experience different tastes of the world. Invest in a number of different boxes of tea from different places in the world. Many types of tea can be found at your local supermarket or mass merchandise store, for example, green tea from China, masala tea from India, black tea from Kenya, Earl grey tea from the UK, etc. For more specialized tea, you can find great deals online, especially if you buy in bulk. Then pack them in pretty plastic bags, simple baskets, or mugs. Remember to  include a card explaining the different types of tea and where they are from.

Box of Homemade Treats

Roll up your sleeves and get your hands sticky making homemade fudge, cupcakes, truffles, mini loaves of bread, brownies, candy, &/or cookies. These are fun to make, fun to decorate, and fun to eat. Get out the tried and true family recipes to use. 

Personalized Wrapping

Get creative with your wrapping too. Many options include pretty but inexpensive plates, mugs, disposable foil pans, colorful plastic wrap, and Christmas patterned Ziploc bags.

Written by Nisha Sharma from Freebies365.co.uk and Storm Litz.

Tony's Stocking

The interesting thing about Tony’s Stocking – a shippable, corrugated cardboard box shaped like a Christmas stocking -- is that it goes right through the mail, as is, no wrapping, no tape.  Just stuff it and ship it.  The best thing is there is no extra charge for shipping this unique shape.  When was the last time the box you shipped it in delivered as much excitement as the gift inside?

Tony’s Stocking, a unique, patent-pending stocking-box, is the innovative invention of Cathy Staller, whose son, Tony, is in the Air Force. When Tony was stationed away from home his first Christmas season, Cathy crafted a special stocking-shaped box out of cardboard and duct tape, filled it with goodies, and sent it  to him. Despite its “homemade” appearance, that first stocking brought so much joy to everyone who saw it that we decided to make it available to everyone. Nothing reminds us more about family and home than the traditional holiday stocking. Last year, hundreds of Tony’s Stockings were stuffed by volunteers and shipped to our troops overseas.

Tony's Stocking can be found at ShipShapeUSA.
 
Spread joy this Christmas, before your presents are even opened!

Tony's Stocking

* Made in the U.S.A.

* 90% Solar-powered manufacturing

* Recycled and recyclable materials

* Ships via USPS, UPS, FedEx, and more

* No extra shipping charges for unique shape

* Retail price: $5; wholesale pricing available

* Branding and customization available

 

Special Effects to Make Every Gift Original

Here are some easy and inventive ways to make every gift unique:

Give gifts character. For special presents, make tags from scratch. Use cookie cutters as a template and trace onto colored paper and cut out.

Make your mark. Stamp tags with yuletide wishes and images.

Trim with care. Scissors with fancy edges transform scraps of paper into delicate labels.

Stick it on. Dress up plain paper with metallic stickers - stars, snowflakes, hearts, dots - and your presents will twinkle.

Dress it up. Let the kids create designs on plain brown Kraft paper.

Be original. Use maps, newspaper, comics, posters, etc., to wrap your gift.

The History of Gift Wrap

Though the practice of gift giving has a long Christmas history, those gifts being presented in colorful paper and tied up in curls of ribbon is a relatively new practice. While Christmas cards began to be sent in the mid-nineteenth century it wasn't until many years later that dressing up presents in Christmas finery caught on.

Holiday gift giving began long before Christmas. The Romans would give gifts to one another on pagan festivals like Saturnalia, the winter solstice, and the Roman New Year. The tradition of gift giving became associated with Christmas because of the offerings of the Three Wise Men, though early on the Church discouraged the practice of gift giving because of its pagan associations. But by the Middle Ages the tradition had become so popular that it became a mainstay of the holiday season.

Early on gifts were wrapped in simple tissue paper or more sturdy brown paper. In the nineteenth century, gifts were sometimes presented in decorated cornucopias or paper baskets. The technology did not exist to mass produce a decorated, foldable, paper until the 1890's, when developments in printing presses allowed colored ink to be printed fluidly on stiffer papers. A rotary system developed that allowed the printed paper to be rolled onto cardboard rolls or cut into smaller sheets. The printed gift wrap industry took off at the turn of the century. Hy-Sill Manufacturing Inc., founded by Eli Hyman and Morris Silverman, became the first American gift wrap company in 1903. Wrapping paper's biggest name, Hallmark, stumbled upon the gift wrap market by accident. In 1917, the Hall Brothers's typical offering of green, red, and white tissue paper had sold out in their Kansas City, Missouri store a few days before Christmas. The resourceful owner, Rollie Hall, had sheets of decorative envelope liners shipped over from a manufacturing plant. He placed these large patterned sheets on top of a showcase and sold them for 10 cents each. The decorative paper quickly sold out. The next year, the sheets sold for three for 25 cents, and again they quickly disappeared. The brothers began printing their own Christmas wrapping paper, and soon gift wrap sales rivaled their greeting card department.

Early gift wrappers had to be especially dexterous; scotch tape wasn't invented until 1930! And it wasn't until 1932 that the rolls of adhesive tape were sold in dispensers with cutter blades. Before then packages were tied up with string and sealing wax. In the 20's and 30's small sticky circles were sold in packets along with folded papers that allowed the wrapper to attach the paper. During this time also, small gift tags and a type of sticky decorative ribbon were developed, often included in packets of matching wrapping paper.

Over the years the look of wrapping paper changed as well. The first wrapping paper was decorated in the ornate style of the Victorian era, similar to the Christmas greeting cards that had become all the rage. Gilded flourishes of cherubs, birds, and flowers draped across sheets of popular wrapping papers. In the 30's and 40's, patterns became more stylized due to the popularity of Art Deco. Decorations moved away from nature to symbols we commonly associate with Christmas today. Popular patterns included ice skaters, snowflakes, Christmas trees, and candles. While the symbols remained the same, the artwork became more realistic again in the 50's and 60's. By the 70's and 80's, Madison Avenue had realized the potential of wrapping paper and hence, wrapping paper often had movie or TV show tie-ins, with designs incorporating popular movie or cartoon characters.

Gift wrap was saved from the rationing that many other products were subject to during World War II. The War Office believed that gift wrap and other Christmas traditions contributed to raising morale amongst citizens, and also believed that it encouraged people to send packages to soldiers far from home. Some gift wrap manufacturers turned to weapon and other wartime production, but the ones that remained making paper saw business boom. Sales actually increased by more than twenty percent during the war!

Innovations with gift wrap have continued. The 1980's introduced decorative plastic and paper gift bags, though these "new" bags weren't as new as some people thought. The Victorians had often given their gifts in decorated bags. The introduction of stick-on bows and cascade ribbons in the 80's and 90's further helped less than perfect gift wrappers.

By Mac Carey

Make Recycled Wrapping Paper Bows

Here's a creative way to recycle all that surplus gift wrapping paper; you can use it to make beautiful paper bows.